Job 19:2-29

19:2 “How long will you torment me

and crush me with your words?

19:3 These ten times you have been reproaching me;

you are not ashamed to attack me!

19:4 But even if it were true that I have erred,

my error remains solely my concern!

19:5 If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me

and plead my disgrace against me,

19:6 know then that God has wronged me

and encircled me with his net.

Job’s Abandonment and Affliction

19:7 “If I cry out, ‘Violence!’

I receive no answer;

I cry for help,

but there is no justice.

19:8 He has blocked my way so I cannot pass,

and has set darkness over my paths.

19:9 He has stripped me of my honor

and has taken the crown off my head.

19:10 He tears me down on every side until I perish;

he uproots my hope like one uproots a tree.

19:11 Thus his anger burns against me,

and he considers me among his enemies.

19:12 His troops advance together;

they throw up a siege ramp against me,

and they camp around my tent.

Job’s Forsaken State

19:13 “He has put my relatives far from me;

my acquaintances only turn away from me.

19:14 My kinsmen have failed me;

my friends have forgotten me.

19:15 My guests and my servant girls

consider me a stranger;

I am a foreigner in their eyes.

19:16 I summon my servant, but he does not respond,

even though I implore him with my own mouth.

19:17 My breath is repulsive to my wife;

I am loathsome to my brothers.

19:18 Even youngsters have scorned me;

when I get up, they scoff at me.

19:19 All my closest friends detest me;

and those whom I love have turned against me.

19:20 My bones stick to my skin and my flesh;

I have escaped alive with only the skin of my teeth.

19:21 Have pity on me, my friends, have pity on me,

for the hand of God has struck me.

19:22 Why do you pursue me like God does?

Will you never be satiated with my flesh?

Job’s Assurance of Vindication

19:23 “O that my words were written down,

O that they were written on a scroll,

19:24 that with an iron chisel and with lead

they were engraved in a rock forever!

19:25 As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,

and that as the last

he will stand upon the earth.

19:26 And after my skin has been destroyed,

yet in my flesh I will see God,

19:27 whom I will see for myself,

and whom my own eyes will behold,

and not another.

My heart grows faint within me.

19:28 If you say, ‘How we will pursue him,

since the root of the trouble is found in him!’

19:29 Fear the sword yourselves,

for wrath brings the punishment by the sword,

so that you may know

that there is judgment.”